In the spacious halls of the Martial King's Manor, three figures sat together.
Shi Yi occupied the main seat, with A'Man at his side, serving tea. To his left sat Yu Yuexian, the nominal head of the Manor, and below them were Shi Hao and his mother, Qin Yining.
"Two years, and so much has happened!"
Shi Yi's head throbbed, his heart heavy with grief.
He couldn't fathom it—how a simple rescue mission had spiraled into such catastrophe. Bi'an and Yazi, hailing from the distant Heaven Domain, were somehow tied to the adult Pixiu in ways he hadn't imagined.
Now, he finally understood the Pixiu's talk of "no reconciliation, only death" and its audacious claim of visiting the Martial King's Manor.
But for now, he alone had to shoulder the burden of the Martial King's Manor.
Only he could bear it.
"Yi'er, you must drive out this mother and son at once—especially that Shi Hao. He's a calamity! Everyone who knows the truth curses him," Yu Yuexian said, her voice seething with resentment.
Though the Rain Clan's integration into the Stone Clan and the Manor had granted her significant authority, her tolerance for Shi Hao and Qin Yining had reached its breaking point.
With Father gone, as the eldest son and heir, it falls to me to take charge.
Shi Yi gently pressed his mother's shoulder, easing her back into her seat as she instinctively rose. In doing so, he assumed her role as the Manor's acting head.
It wasn't that he distrusted his mother.
She simply couldn't hold the position.
She was an ordinary woman of mediocre talent. Though the Rain Clan's support had propped her up as acting head, neither the Manor's nor the Stone Clan's younger generation would truly submit to an outsider like her.
Only Shi Yi could command that loyalty—not just because of his double pupils' prodigious talent, but because of his name, Shi, and his status as the Manor's direct heir.
"Yi'er, if you want to take charge, Mother has no objections. But that calamity cannot stay. If he brings disaster upon you, I'd regret it for the rest of my life," Yu Yuexian said, her doting love for Shi Yi unwavering. Whatever he desired, she'd give—if she didn't have it, she'd seize it for him.
The role of acting head? She relinquished it without a second thought, having only held it to secure it for Shi Yi.
"Mother, Shi Hao is my brother, my kin. When we were young, I always said he'd grow up to protect me," Shi Yi said, pausing briefly before continuing. "But as his older brother, sometimes I must step up to protect him. That's my duty."
His words fell, and a small figure crashed into his arms. Looking down, Shi Yi saw Shi Hao, tears streaming uncontrollably.
The clan's misunderstanding, the outsiders' blame, the estrangement from kin—it had all wounded the young boy deeply.
But thankfully, one family member didn't scorn him or his "calamity" label.
"Don't cry. They call you a calamity, and you just accept it? I say you're not," Shi Yi said.
He knew Shi Hao was merely a scapegoat for a disaster not of his making. The Rain Clan and the Manor's people needed someone to blame for the staggering losses.
"Yi Gege, really?"
Shi Hao lifted his head, his large eyes shimmering with tears.
"Of course it's true."
Shi Yi nodded, then tapped Shi Hao's chest lightly. "Brother, do you know? In your chest lies a bone—a bone destined to reign supreme."
Revealing the Supreme Bone now posed no issue.
More importantly, Shi Yi sensed Shi Hao's growing self-doubt, as if he truly believed he was a calamity. He hoped the Supreme Bone would restore his brother's former confidence.
"The Supreme Bone?"
Qin Yining, who had been silent, suddenly spoke.
"Aunt, Brother has the Supreme Bone. Like me, he's a supreme youth," Shi Yi confirmed with a nod.
To shed the "calamity" label, Shi Yi's words alone wouldn't suffice. Shi Hao needed to display his talent to silence the Manor's critics.
"The Supreme Bone? Yi Gege, is it an extra bone?"
Shi Hao's tears stopped as he fumbled at his chest.
"Yeah, an extra bone—like a bony growth!" Shi Yi teased offhandedly.
Then, rising, he approached Qin Yining and said warmly, "Aunt, don't worry too much. I'm in charge of the Manor now. You and Brother can stay here in peace. This is your home—no one can drive you out."
With that, he raised a hand to silence his mother, Yu Yuexian, before she could say something hurtful.
Fortunately, Yu Yuexian's indulgence of Shi Yi was absolute. Whatever he said or did, she wouldn't oppose.
Next, Shi Yi stepped outside, summoning his ten Heavenly Passages. The ten radiant suns blazed behind him, casting him as a god descended, majestic and sacred.
In an instant, countless double pupils lit up the sky above the Manor, proclaiming to all that Shi Yi, the double-pupil bearer, had returned.
"Shi Yi's back?"
"It's really him—the double-pupil Shi Yi!"
"Damn Bi'an, damn Yazi! You'll pay one day! The Rain King and Martial King won't have died in vain!"
The younger generation of the Stone Clan and the Rain Clan, now part of the Manor, erupted in excitement, men and women alike.
This was something Shi Hao could never achieve. With Shi Yi's mother hailing from the Rain Clan, their younger generation answered only to him.
"All of you, gather at the Manor's training ground. I, Shi Yi, have an important announcement," Shi Yi declared, his voice neither loud nor soft, yet resonating throughout the Manor.
___
Meanwhile, in the Stone Kingdom's Imperial Palace
"That boy Shi Yi's back from the Great Wilderness?"
A middle-aged man with a gentle demeanor and a ruddy complexion sat upon a dragon throne suffused with the aura of humanity.
"Yes, Your Majesty. He's returned to the Martial King's Manor," an elderly but robust guard replied respectfully.
"Zhu Yan said he broke through to ten Heavenly Passages, a talent fit to reign in this era. It even came back to ask if I had a suitable princess for him to wed, and it yielded the Great Wilderness's Mountain Treasure to him," the man remarked with a sigh.
"The Sixteenth Princess is of a suitable age," the guard offered.
"Little Sixteenth is close in age to Shi Yi—indeed a good match," the man nodded slightly.
"Your Majesty, the Fire Kingdom seems to…" The guard hesitated.
"I know. The Vermilion Bird even forcibly arranged a betrothal for Shi Yi," the man said gravely.
Unbeknownst to Shi Yi, the Stone Kingdom's Human Emperor was arranging his marriage. At that moment, Shi Yi hovered high above, his ten Heavenly Passages blazing like vast suns, too dazzling to behold.
It had to be said—the oppressive might of ten Heavenly Passages was extraordinary. Shi Yi's, forged from the thirteen Daoist scriptures and imbued with the forces of yin-yang, chaos, the five elements, and the eight trigrams, were even more formidable.
"I, Shi Yi, direct heir of the Martial King's Manor and the Stone Clan, have honed myself in the Great Wilderness for five years, achieving ten Heavenly Passages. Upon returning home, I learned that our patriarchs were slain by ferocious beasts."
"This news weighs heavily. Yet the Martial King's Manor cannot be leaderless. I, Shi Yi, shall bear this responsibility and the burden of vengeance."
"This grudge will be avenged!"
His words fell, and the younger generation—both Stone Clan and Rain Clan—knelt, pledging their allegiance to the supreme youth with ten Heavenly Passages.
They trusted Shi Yi had the ability to lead them to retribution.
The enmity between beasts and humans had festered too long.
There was no right or wrong.
Only hatred.
_
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